Door Bumper Clear - 208 – Marty Smith: Passion is Undefeated

Episode Date: March 31, 2021

Following the inaugural Bristol Motor Speedway NASCAR dirt track race weekend, winning Cup Series spotter T.J. Majors is joined by Freddie Kraft, who John Hunter Nemechek said needs glasses, and everyone’s favorite couch spotter, Brett Griffin.After they breakdown the action from Monday afternoon, ESPN’s Marty Smith joins the show to share stories about his time in NASCAR, how he made it, building relationships, his Bristol dirt reactions, and much more.The perspective of the spotters is in high-demand after seeing NASCAR run on the Bristol dirt for the first time. Hear from them on what they called the “Dust Bowl” and find out just how bad visibility really was.As for the on-track action, they detail what they liked and disliked, plus why it was refreshing to see Cup drivers making mistakes. Dirt racing aces Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell were not immune to those mistakes. Hear what the crew thought of both drivers’ early trouble.Should NASCAR have thrown a caution for Bubba Wallace’s spin late in the race? Freddie weighs in and pleads for consistency from the sport when displaying the yellow flag.Corey LaJoie called Brett out for his “couch spotter” take after an early incident collected numerous cars in the Cup race. Brett responds and explains who he was really talking about in his tweet.Denny Hamlin wished for a do over after the finish. The guys share what they wish he would have done on the overtime restart to contend with Joey Logano.John Hunter Nemechek said Freddie and his Truck Series driver Derek Kraus need glasses after Kraus wrecked well after Nemechek spun. Freddie explains exactly what happened and how safety workers interfered with Kraus’ truck after the accident.In Reaction Theatre, T.J wins yet can find no love. He reacts to fans both upset and pleased with the No. 22 team’s victory. Freddie hears it from the listeners as well, including the youngest reaction theatre caller yet.Which drivers proved that it takes more than speed to perform well in NASCAR? The guys answer in the Xfinity xFi More than Fast Moment segment. That, plus the weekly “What an Idiot” awards and Martinsville picks. Want more DBC? Check out and subscribe to the new DBC YouTube channel! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, what's up? I'm Brett Griffin. It's time for another solid episode of Door Bumper Clear. We're going to be joined by my buddy, Marty Smith, who tells amazing stories. You won't want to miss that segment. We're also going to cover everything from the inaugural Bristol Dirt Weekend. We'll talk TJ and Joy Lagano's victory, Freddie needing some glasses, and according to Corey LaJoy, no visibility. Let's go. Nobody's listening, but I don't care. I'm on an episode of Door Bumper. Clear. Hey, everybody. I'm TJ Major. Spard of the One Truck, 22 cup car.

Got a donkey in there and a full room in here. Big winner last week. Congratulations. Spotter. You did a great job. Since Joey didn't say it on TV, I'm going to tell you here, you did a great job. He thanked everybody but T.J. Majors. The guy who helped guide him through a demolition derby at times where you couldn't even see.

I know. No credit given. Joey? and you think about it, man. Brett Griffin Spotter, Collick Racing. I was actually couch spotting over the weekend in case anybody was paying attention. Don't worry, you tweeted enough for us.

And alongside of me. What's up? It's Freddie Craft. Spotter for Bubba Wallace. Spotter for Derek Krauss. I don't know about that. I don't know about that the second one. At times. Oh, my gosh.

Nobody else this weekend, right? Nope. Back from a dusty, dusty, dusty Bristol Motor Speedway. Thought the track was great. TJ, we're walking to our cars afterwards. I hope we do this again next year. I love it. I change your mind.

I love dirt racing. We got to our cars. I'm like, man, this was so much fun, guys. We need to do it again next year. I can't wait. I was just going to say last week, weren't you, like, a little bit against it? So now... I mean, I was optimistic about it.

These, they were, you guys were pretty much against it, weren't you? Yes. And I was more optimistic about it. For multiple reasons. If it didn't rain and ruin that, like, I don't know, That rain ruined a lot. It might have been a fairly decent show. I mean, the dust was still going to be...

I think the rain saved them. I think the rain made it entertaining. I think the rain made the start of the truck race awesome. I think the rain made the start of the cup race awesome. And then I think once the rain, what was left over from the rain, the moisture was completely gone. It turned into a dust bowl. And I would say, Brett, you had a good point about making it.

We'll go into this more. are you anyway. Anyways, I'm Casey. Casey Boat here. And then we have, of course, our amazing donkey. So, Jason, I am. White Claw Shultz here. I'm proud of you. Wait, you weren't drinking a white claw this weekend. I checked. Incorrect. I'm proud of you, Jason, for working so hard on our show that you got promoted to do two shows, unlike everybody else in this room who's jealous that you work on the download. But I got a bone to pick with you. How come, like, here's what happens. Maybe Freddie will help back me up on this. Like, you guys will tweet out our show. And then the minute you tweet out our show. It's like 10 more posts about Dale Jr. Then you pin him. Like you just

bury us and social. Like when are we going to get equality? I'm all about equality in today's world. When are we going to get fucking equality on Dirtymo Media social channels? I don't know. Who runs the social channel? Is Leah? Leah's on Zoom. She's going to wear you out here in a second. Does Dillner do any of it? Freddie, back me up on this. Oh, we do get buried down the timeline a little bit. Freddie knows his place that he needs to, he knows who the boss is here. It's like they don't get enough attention already. I mean, Dillner was starving so much and he tried to tag me in a tweet and he wouldn't even tag Dale Jr. in it. He wrote

Dale Jr. without even putting his name in there. How many times a week does Dillner click the heart or reply to Dill Jr. on Twitter? As many times as Dill. I bet he is searched his first tweet and went from the beginning. Do you think he has Dale Jr. notifications on? He got notified when Dale

tweets. He has Google Analytics like anytime Dale's name comes up, I bet you. He's sitting up there just giddy right now, waiting for a tweet to come up. So Jason, pull some strings. Get us out from underneath. He's not happy. Look at his face.

He's editing all of this out of the show. He's got that head down. We deserve, I mean, I tweeted it last week. We deserve more low. When are we going to get a pen tweet on the fucking channel? When you stop cursing so you don't make Jason's job. Speaking of cussing, I got my COVID shot last week. I got my first COVID shot.

What does that have to do with Cust? I cussed. That's the fucking thing hurt. Actually, at the shot. man doesn't hurt at all. So it was a drive-through, man. It was the craziest thing. I went to North Ardell High School and I drove through and a lady walks up and she asks me a bunch of questions and then she sticks me with this needle and she's like, you can go over here for 15 minutes and be observed or you can leave. I was like, oh, what could possibly go wrong? So I just drove back home,

right? Yeah. But man, it makes your arm super duper sore. Have you got yours yet? No, my wife has. Yeah. So, and she complained about her arm a little bit. I got mine and what I think needs to happen in our sport is if you can prove you've had your shots, you should be able to go in the infield, go in a garage. That is the point because you can't, you've 95% immune to COVID. You obviously are saying, hey, I'm good. You should be able to go in a garage. It does suck when you win, especially at a track like that, I would have liked to have went.

I mean, being cool to go inside. I'm just saying like it. What I don't get about, TJ is how do you get to the racetrack normally? I mean, obviously there you got to drive. Oh, the same guys that are there. You flew with them. So why can't you go to Victory Lane with them? I mean, it's the same with family members, too.

I have minimal contact with anybody. I mean, just the spotters, really. You're in your car the rest of the time. So it's not like you're not like you're out and about, you know. So. I think there should, now that we are further along in this whole deal. I think it's coming eventually here. I think wives and family members should be allowed in.

I think they are. Joy had pictures with his wife and kid. After, after the fact that. But I do agree with the vaccine part. And I also think that there's a lot of companies like sponsors who. Why do wives need to go in there? Curious. Well, there is much a part of the team as, like...

Are they? Yes, we... I have to speak for myself here. I'm going to sit back. Yeah, I'm not going to get involved in this. We do as much. I mean, the sacrifices that we've made, I know Brittany has to deal with her kids.

She has a lot while Joey's traveling. It's really tough being a millionaire's wife. It's so hard. Unlike the crew chief, I'm sorry, unlike the shot guy's wife. Like she definitely doesn't deserve to go to race. Well, I'm saying any, I'm saying any family member. I feel like it's. You just said driver's wives.

You said driver's wives. I just meant it as in Brittany last week, like, and those in victory lanes. So all the wives should get together. All of the family members. That's never happened in NASCAR history that all the wives are at the race track. If they're able to go, there's, I mean, I know people who go if they're able to, like, they'll go to Charlotte Race Week. Freddy. I'm leaving.

Freddy's red. He is. I'm laughing. Because I know, I know Megan would. like she has made a lot of sacrifices while you are traveling are you kidding me look at me um so Megan Megan deserves to be at the track over the CEO of FedEx I'm not saying that I'm saying that like I'm serious I'm asking a valid question I feel as though if you are able to go to the track and you are around the people that you're around you know I feel like there should at some point

soon I feel like the tire guy's wife is just as important as a driver's wife you're kind of backtracking a little bit Casey but I do agree oh my gosh I just meant that like family member are making as much sacrifices as... I'm not getting my point across. I clearly have not had my coffee this morning. You were 10 minutes late. You had plenty time to get coffee. I was not 10 minutes late.

I was about to say something really nice about you, and now I'm on. You can take it back now. Anyways, I was just... I just meant that family members don't get a lot of credit, and it would be nice. You said driver's wives. I wish that this were a live show...

I just wish this were a live show with a live audience right now. I'm just messing with you. I can see what the live audience would be thinking. Let's take DBC on the road. I literally meant family members in general. Okay. Okay.

You're just giving it now. Bristol, Bristol. It's dirt, baby. So, did you do anything to celebrate your win? Yeah, I drove the road course home and had to bag it down halfway down the mountain because I could smell the brakes on the car. I don't even go that way anymore. I don't either.

Yeah, I did that and I'm like, man, there's nobody in front of it. me and I can smell the brakes. This is not good. So one time, a long time ago, John Wood, and y'all know John Wood, and John Wood in his 20s was a lunatic. He's like he is on Twitter right now. He's a full ball on Twitter. He literally rode the brakes the whole way home. That's not a good idea. And caught the car on fire. He called it. He called the car on fire. A rental car? Yeah. Yeah. But there was another time, and there was another time that we, You know all the teams have those 15 passenger white vans.

Oh, yeah. So he went to his grandpa Glenn Woods house, and he proceeded to power brake this rear van, this van. So he's got the front brakes held down in the rear wheel, just spinning. Blew out both tires. Nice. Doug ruts in the concrete driveway and just left it. Send it. We should get John Wood on here, because if I can get him to start telling on himself, it would be hysterical.

He is hilarious some of the comments that he makes on the Wood Brothers. So John Wood is the grandson of Glenwood and the son of Eddie Wood, who is still running the Wood Brothers. Eddie and Lynn Woodrow run the Wood Brothers along with Kim Woodhaw. Great people. They lost Bernice this week, which was sad to see such a sweet lady, such a big part of NASCAR history. But no, John is, John's an epic character. His comments, man. His witty little comments are hilarious.

And he runs Wood Brothers Racing Twitter. That Twitter handle is pretty funny. He does a good job with it. Some of the things I'm like, but it's funny. It is funny. He says what you're thinking most of the time. I want to know.

Tell me more about Bristol. Obviously, we couldn't be there. So did you see? Should you go for a swim on Saturday and Sunday? Yeah. What? Did you go for a swim on Saturday and Sunday? No.

Sunday was. I didn't even go to the track, I think. Sunday? So did you go to the bar instead? No, Saturday. Sunday I never made it to the track. Saturday, you were at the track because they started the truck heat races, Yeah, but I barely got there, and then I left as soon as they pulled.

You didn't make it. The truck heat races, when everybody, except for maybe a couple people in the tower, knew that that was not going to be a very good idea. I mean, yeah, roll them off here. There should be, oh, my God, they can't see a thing. They ran these dirt late models out there for about 10, 15 minutes, too. There's four of them. Four or five.

And they are built to run on dirt and had zero traction. Like, could not, there were slip and sliding. They were definitely sliding up the racetrack a little. bit in the beginning. It was, it was honestly for those cars by the end of them was perfect for like going out there and running a fast lap, like gripped up, you know what I mean? We've never, we've probably never had a situation where it was more dangerous than that. That's the most because the whole field couldn't see. You weren't there, obviously. Did you have a NASCAR radio on for that, the start of that?

Oh, yeah. When the, when the pace truck pulled out in front of the, so they go, yeah, yellow immediately and the pace truck pulls out and they start yelling him no no no no he can't see you get out of there because they thought he was just going to run over the back of the paste truck and literally they couldn't see in half a lap so they went they went by they took the green into one I was like oh that's a that's pretty decent like and then they come around the next time it's like there's no way they can see like no bubba shot the bubble started like I was watching bubba he started like eighth in that heat maybe and you should I think Bubba's the truck I was watching the wind shot on and he should he shot the middle and passed like two rows of cars because I think

It was like Chase Purdy, maybe of somebody on the outside bowl. Yeah, they got checked down a little bit. He was struggling. So he slides and he's sideways. And Bubba just runs straight into him. I'm like, what's he doing? Like, what's pay attention? And then they show his ink card.

You can't see a thing. So by the middle of one and two, you were already done. You couldn't see anything. Wow. I mean, this was pretty much the worst case scenario for what could have happened. I mean. Like, we talked about it leading into this. That was the most rain I've seen in Bristol in a long time.

I'm just talking about that scenario right there. just went to show how little they know about what they're doing. You know what I mean? Like, there's no way that was going to work. So you give Marcus Smith major props for having Big Cunas. Because he goes for it. And he's scared to try something. They may, like, listen, the amount of work that went into that, like little small details

you think about, they had to rebuild the gate in turn three just to get, you know, because obviously if you built the track up, now the gate's not going to open up. So they had a little deep, the amount of work that went into it is amazing. And it wasn't a terrible event. but like you knew all the issues that were going to pop up along the way and it just like I said last week it's a great idea if it works out great but there needs to be somebody in a better position to make decisions because all the stuff we talked about last week happened this weekend. It did absolutely. We warned them. I mean, yeah.

I'd have to say the dumbest thing I saw during the whole process though was only three minutes to prep the track in between the 50 lap stages or 50 lap runs because that's where the track was going to crap and going, quick. Like you have to take the 15 minutes or however much time it takes to water the track down and get the surface back right. Because when you guys are going green and you can't see, that's just stupid. So I, Monday nights now, I've been doing this thing the last couple weeks with Brian Dunlap, Waukepedia. And Megan, I was going to be like, all right then. Midget Mondays. Yeah. And so I got in there the week before because we were talking about Bristol Cup race. And then I said, well, you know, I got home and they were still going. It was, I don't know, like 11 o'clock. I think whereas I was on there like two and more and talking these guys. But Chase Briscoe was in there, and he was talking about the guys that run dirt, you know, Chase, Larson, Bell, Ricky, you know, they were telling them, and listen, I don't know why this is, but they were saying the way they were doing that when they were just watering the top lane and maybe the very bottom under the brakes was making it dusty. It makes it more dusty.

Like, I don't know why that is, but you know what? Chase Briscoe knows why that is and all these guys that run dirt all the time know why, so why would you not listen to the guys that do this all the time? Like if they're saying this is going to make your track worse, okay, let's try something else. And they did at the end there. But for like when we got to that restart with 100 laps to go, like the last double file restart,

like if you weren't in the top three rows, you couldn't see anything. Like coming up down the front stretch. The sun made it way worse. Oh, guess what? It's a day race on the dirt track. I was just going to say. So what, knowing that we are doing this again next year,

besides you said making it a night race, having a longer. I don't think Fox will do that. I don't think Fox will make this a night race. I don't know if they can. I don't think they will. I think it should be a night race, but I don't,

I'm okay with prepping the track a little bit more. I think the tails wagging a dog, and it won't happen. I think the track prep could be, do it a little bit more. That was a lot. I would have liked to see some of them runs go a little bit longer because I didn't see anybody blow a tire. I don't know what the length of a tire wear of a run could be right there.

Maybe they could only run five more or less, but I know that it was kind of fun seeing the guy, that could move around a little bit and see the guys that saved the tires because there was actually some you know bubba ran right up on us and he was running that lane that used tires up a little bit more and then you got you kind of got right to us and then kind of fell back a little bit joey was just creeping around the bottom saving his tires and we were able to run the leaders down at the end and i feel like we were better than them but we didn't want a chance we wanted the outside lane restart and we didn't want to be we wanted to be fourth you know we didn't want to be third for sure so we we just rode around and fourth because there was no points for that deal that was the 50 lap thing. So we rode around there, and I feel like that's what Martin did.

Martin was so fast. He'd wear his stuff out. And I'm not 100% sure watching. I wish Bell and Larson were, you know, I'd have been a great race with them out there still too. But they were flying in the beginning. Like, Larson, they were, dude, Bell was so fast. So was Larson. But there was actually some, a driver.

And this is something we don't see a whole lot. We only see it a small handful of times a, year where a driver has to manage stuff. Yeah. And I saw that. I think what you're afraid of is compounding the problem where the track itself might turn into a little bit of a show. And then if now you've got a track that and these guys just continue to blow tires, you're going to get killed by everybody. Yeah, I don't want tires to be blowing. I just don't know what the length. Could they have run another 25 last?

You're worried about, I mean, I'm sorry, you talked about your practice tire where, you know, when the track slicked over a lot for them for on Friday. and that's why they changed the whole format of the race because guys were wearing their stuff out. A hunter might have been too long, but I just don't know what the longevity of it would have been. But I liked that there was actually some, hey, a guy saves this stuff like Carl Edwards used to do with Atlanta. It used to ride around and save yourself. Then you haul ass at the end of the run. If I'm a racer, I don't know that that's a good race.

If I'm a race fan, it was a great race. Yeah. It was truly, I've seen people. There was about a 30 or 40 lap segment where it got really single file and boring. But after that, it was right back dusty. You couldn't see the restarts from nuts. Then they went to single file. All the crazy things that were happening were awesome to be watching.

I can't say that they would have been awesome to be spotting or awesome to be driving, but it was awesome to watch. It was fun seeing these guys make mistakes because these guys, the Cup Series guys don't make many mistakes. And it was fun seeing a guy missed the bottom a little bit, hurry up, try to cover it back up, a guy be there a little bit, you know, maybe bump a little bit. there was just, there was that type of type of stuff, even that long run. I mean, we all ran Truex down. Suarez all over him, shus them up the racetrack.

To me, you know, seeing Suarez up there moving that guy for the lead, I mean, Daniel Suarez just moved Martin Truex for the lead. When are we going to say that again this year, you know? But that's not a dirt racer. And he was wheeling it. You know, he's driving the heck out of it. But it was just a, to me, I thought it was a good race, just watching the drivers have to maintain their stuff.

hit the marks like they were happening to. Well, I think we have to keep going, but I will say that... Why, the Dozier Download is done for the week. No, we'll get into all this in a little bit. Yes, we're going to talk about it. But I think that it got people talking about it. I mean, the Today Show, tons of coverage, I think, national coverage that we don't normally get. It got a lot of attention.

So... For a fan, it was awesome. I loved watching it. You know, one of the things that I think another more, you know, more inexperience in the booth, in the tower, I should say. is not knowing when to throw a caution. We saw in the truck race, and obviously I'm biased of this, just like T.J. loves the racetrack because he won.

I'm biased because my guy spun out and didn't get a caution somehow. But we saw this in... It was so good, he kept going. But we saw it in the truck race. How'd that work out when there's a guy out there with a flat tire running around half throttle? Kyle Larson destroyed him because you can't, for one, in the cup race, you can't see.

And two, there's guys sliding around in front of you, So there's a guy right in front of Larson, and I think it was Mike Marler, had a flat, and Larson's pinned up, you know, this guy's bumper, this guy moves, and Larson has nowhere to go. You can't stop. You can't slow down because you're on dirt, and he ass packs this guy and destroys his truck, potentially, you know, could have hurt himself there. And then, you know, we throw cautions for, we spin out, we've got a flat, we do a 360, we keep rolling, and we're slow as shit down the backstretch trying to get down to get the pit road.

guys are going by either side one at a time, and we don't get a caution. We talk about consistent. I don't care. If you don't ever throw it, don't ever throw it. But this is why if you ever watch a dirt race, the second there's a problem, flat tire, somebody breaks, whatever. The guy's out of the groove, the yellow's out immediately. Because there's a lot less car control. These guys can't avoid.

We saw it's harder to avoid accidents on a dirt surface like that. And you just ask for trouble when you got a guy out there rolling around half throttle. I don't understand why are the caution. wasn't thrown, but it sucked, ended my day. I will say there was at one point one of the guys in the truck race, pulled low on the front stretch, slammed on the brake, stopped, and then took off soon as the yellow came. That was Norm.

Yeah, that was Norm. And they finally penalized somebody for... Well, they didn't penalize him then. I don't think it was Norm that time. It was somebody else. No, it was. No, there was another guy. Norm stopped on the bottom of turn.

He cut the tire and that one. No, this is on the front stretch. Yeah. Oh, okay, on the, like, turn the... I saw Norm stop like the end of the front stretch. And then keep going once the... off. Yeah, and then took off. Did you know Norm is 179 years old? I didn't know he was that old.

It's pretty old. They flashed his age up on the broadcast and I was like, holy crap. That guy's old. How old is he? 179. I just laugh. If we talk about this on here though, too, you know, and we've said this before, it depends on who you are. Like, we have seen Kyle Bush spin out intentionally. All these guys spin out intentionally. No penalty. Norm Benning does it. They throw the guy off the race track. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, I mean, he could not have made it more obvious.

And he also came out. He did it as other guy. He did, he did a lot because a big wreck when he came off pit road too. I mean,

clear, all the way to the fence. Here comes the leaders. I mean, I thought they were a little rough on norm at times, but I've seen people do worse. But yeah,

I mean, got Marty Smith in a little bit, so let's get going. Yeah, we got to keep going. Anyways, let's hear more about our presenting sponsor, Offer Pat.

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You know, I have this feeling. It's never wrong. Offerpad flex. We got this. A better way to list your home. Start your free sales request at offerpad.com today. Spot on spot off. First topic.

Dirt ringers Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson are taken out in a wreck after 54 laps of the race. Spot on, spot off, ready. Spot off for the show because I think that they would have been up front battling for the lead. I don't know if love. Lars would have been able to keep his tires on, but if he could, he was getting ready to wax our asses because he drove from last to like six in 50 laps. So, you know, if he could have kept tires on, he's probably the guy to beat the rest of the day. But the thing that stands out to me is these dirt guys are brutal, especially to each other. Like, you can't make them, like, their expectations are so high for one another.

Like, Larson was pissed off at Bell. Like, Bell did this intentionally. You know what I mean? Way to go, Bell. Like, Bell. like Bell did not intentionally spin out, but they have like a such a high expectation of each other. Like he's committed to running that line because he's, no, well, Christopher's not going to screw up. And sure enough, Christopher screws up and now it ruins both their days and he's pissed off at him.

But yeah, that was, that's the only thing I laugh at. I seen, I think Wyndham did it last year. Somebody spun out in front of him and he hit him and he was mad as hell. And I'm like, I mean, I don't think the guy spun out on purpose. It was just ironic that it was literally the two of them. Just racing, man. It happens. I mean.

Or, TJ, what do you think? Man, it worked out great for us. I didn't have to race those two guys. Those two guys were going to be at the front together at some point. Like Freddie said, I don't know if they were going to be able to keep the tires on it, because I think one thing against them in this, when they run them dirt races, there is no saving yourself in them dirt races they run. You are wide open for as long as you can for 30 laps and you're done.

That type of mentality seemed to hurt guys, and that one run seemed to hurt guys that did that stuff. so but they were definitely uh i i was like super surprised how fast larsson made it up to the top 10 i look by then i'm like all right we're uh eighth oh larston's 11 oh already like what are you and chad console each other when bell has a problem do y'all like sit around and have to hug it out and cry it out like what happens in the boat household i know you guys love him so i'm just curious i am spot on because where are the dirt guys when were they relevant they weren't relevant all weekend they didn't lead a bunch of laps they

didn't win stages and at Msure didn't win either race. Spot on. I thought that was a great unknown. Fast cars go fast. Those guys struggled in the truck race. None of them were relevant. And in the cup race, same thing. I looked up there top 10 into stages and like you got Ricky Stenhouse at ninth.

You got Ricky Stenhouse obviously up there continuing to win at the end. But outside of that, man, the rest of them were completely irrelevant. So spot on, a nice surprise, I think. This goes back to us talking about how good our drivers are and they adapt when we talked about it last week. So our guys, I don't know if they would go to a Ward of Outlaw car or they get lap there, but they adapt to what they're given. It would sure be fun to watch them. Spot on, spot off.

Brett, you, of course, just have to cause some trouble. Brett tweets, dirt cars don't usually have spotters. That wreck looked like several cup cars didn't have a spotter either. And then Cori LaJoy chimes in with visibility with zero out of two with the glare. be easy with the couch spotter take. If you don't get a couch spotter t-shirt made. I'm going to say if T.J. and Freddie will speak to what I was actually tweeting about, unlike Corey LaJoy, who I wasn't tweeting about.

When Eric Amarola wrecked, y'all remember that wreck? Yeah. All right, when all those guys piled into the wreck, could the spotter stand see the racetrack at that time? I'm going to leave this one to Freddy. He has some experience in that area. From the truck race. you could see. You could see perfectly fine.

I wouldn't say perfectly fine, but you could see. You could see well enough to make a decision and where you wanted your guy to go. You could see that your guy needed to check up. Let's put it that way. Oh, 100%. That's all I got to say. Martin Truex, somehow another.

He saw it. His spotter saw it. He slowed down. He didn't get into wreck. Anthony Alfredo is still in the gas trying to pile into this damn wreck, and it was two days ago. So Anthony Alfredo and his spotter need to get on the same page.

That's who I was talking about. I didn't say shit about a driver. I said spotter. Corey didn't even know what he's talking about. He texted me this morning. What happened was I got out of the car and I was mad and your tweet was the first one I saw. Congratulations, Corey.

Don't worry, Corey. He texts it was your fault. Lay in to him. You know, like, I don't know, for one, first of all, let me just get this out of the way now because we're going to have a whole season of this. When Brett is at home watching the races, he is better at everyone.

job. Of course I. Especially when alcohol is involved. He can call the race. If he's on his couch, he's really good. If he's on a bar stool, he's the best. The best. But, you know, like, I will agree with Corey.

The drivers couldn't see. But this wreck, there's a lot of different layers to this wreck, and there's one guy, and you picked him out, Anthony Alfredo, where 10 spins, he's got the brakes locked up, but he's still sliding up the racetrack a little bit because, believe it or not, we're on dirt. The 78, Gullabic clips him. not really a lot that he could have done. I don't think differently.

And then there's a pack of cars coming. It's the 38, the 7, the 15, and the 19. And off of the 2, you see the 38 just accelerate away from them, the rest of the other three. And he actually, you know, he hits, I mean, he center punches the 10, and that's who kind of knocks the 10 down into Corey, and that's how Martin's got a wheezes right through there. But you could see the 38 accelerate.

rate. And I think, obviously, especially this week, I'm going to defend the spotter in that situation, only for the fact that I saw last night of radioactive, the crew chief made a comment, like, I don't know what he was doing. He just drove right in there. So it almost sounds like Spotter might have been calling it and maybe driver didn't listen or what happened there. You got some experience in that area? But I don't know. We'll get to that, I think. Which I also said on Twitter that the spotter may have been spotting and the driver might not have been listening. Yeah. Regardless, it looked like Anthony Alfredo didn't know what he was doing and did not have a spotter. That's what it looked like on TV. So back to the point of no visibility or visibility,

at that point in the race, you guys could see. Now, go to the restart where Chase gets a little sideways and Blaney gets in there and that whole top row of cars couldn't see a thing. At that point, could spot or see. No. I saw the car get spun and that's the last thing that I saw. I was the last car that you could so we were seventh maybe around that at that restart and we're coming off of four and I could I could not see chase outside of us and all of a sudden he kind of comes down like I see his nose pop out like on our quarter and he hits us and we kind of all get jumbled up there and then Blaney but I don't know how any of them guys behind us I could see our car and like the nose of chases because he was back at our quarter and I couldn't see a thing behind it I was like they're wrecking

behind you, I don't know what it looks like. I couldn't tell it was the 12 car that spun. I saw a car start to get spun, and that, like, I could just tell something wasn't right. I couldn't even tell what car it was. Yeah, that was the second and the last double file, then they had one more, and I forget who it was, but it looked like he, I think maybe the 14, possibly, like came down on somebody and that was it. That was, then they went to single file, and they had to.

There was no option. I like Corey. I hope he gets a season turned around. I mean, he's back there in points, and when you're back there in points and you're finishing bad, T.J. gets to start from the poll this week, because where he's seven points where he finished fast laps on the track. It's hard to start in the very back around a lot of them clowns and expect to have a good day. No, it's tough.

It's hard. We had to do that a couple times. Not way back, but like 15, 14, 15, something like that. Yeah. You got to chip away. This is going to be a process. It's going to take a few weeks, a few decent finishes to up where you're at. You know, for Corey, they're going to have to chip away at and get three or four spots at a time.

Yeah, and I hope Corey gets turned around. as well. I was actually excited to see how that team did this year, you know, with Corey going over there and stuff. I was really, really looking forward to seeing how they can put this year together, but really hard. I didn't see the beginning of that wreck. I mean, I saw it start, but I didn't see a replay of Alfredo coming in there late, but I, it was late enough that I have a hard time not believe, I have a hard time, you know, the spotter probably was saying stuff in time at that point. So, that's just my gut instinct on it. You know, that wreck was happening for a little bit.

There are no quick resets in real life. There's no fast repairs. Calm down. No fast repairs. Single-file restarts implemented for the final 81 laps of the cup race. T.J. So we were, I was watching a world of outlaw race two nights before that. And right in the beginning of the race, they come on and said all restarts and all

research to be single file. We're also reducing the race length to 25. laps instead of like 35 or something like that because the track was really really ruddered up and it was pretty dangerous. If you had to drive through the ruts, your car was going to bounce and they turned two or three of them over. So, but right in the beginning there, you know, and I'm kind of, it did help the restarts. It didn't obviously for track position if you're a guy in 20th, it didn't make it any easier on you. But honestly, I didn't find it really putting anybody at disadvantage at that point you kind of got rolling back where you were and then you could go back to work and it was easier

to see uh definitely easier to see i thought because you just didn't have that train two wide train coming down the front stretch yeah so and i'm kind of glad naskart just stepped up and made a decision on it and went with it so freddie you're next tell us why obviously for those that were not not as much of a dirt race fan why they went to single file resarts just like tj said just visibility purpose is, I guess, for us, for the drivers. You know, when you're, you want to stretch the cloud out almost. It's not going to be as heavy if they're too wide. Plus, you're not too wide trying to raise somebody, you know, and not being able to see.

Like I said, the last two restarts, you could not, and it was right after, I think it was the 150-lap break. Yeah, well, it was right. Where, you know, they literally restarted. Like, all day long, there'd be getting times where the cloud would roll in or maybe the sun would be at a certain angle. And I would tell Bubba, like, hey, it's pretty tough off a two right now, or off a four. And it was always off the two corners, of course.

So, but, you know, there'd just be times where it got a little bit heavy, but it wasn't too bad. And then they went on that restart, and I was like, I can't see shit. Like nothing. Like, start, finish, like coming at you, you could see the first three or four rows. And then, you know, as they came to you, a little bit closer, you could see more. But off of four, you couldn't say anything. Through two was really, you know, heavy.

It was hard to see. They wrecked the first lap, you know, first couple laps after those two restarts. And thank God because we wouldn't have been able to see them. So then, I mean, it was absolutely, obviously, it's not ideal for racing-wise. You know, the fans are going on see double-file restarts, but it was necessary. You know, there was the call they had to make, yeah. Safer, for sure. You know, that's why the world outlaws, every restart they have is single file.

You know, the open-wheel cars, they don't want to start double. They start double-filed is race, but then every restart single file, I'm pretty sure the midgets are the same way. Nobody complained. No, I mean, like I said, it's not ideal, but it was definitely necessary. I'm spot off just for the fact that this wasn't in the conversation before the race started, that, hey, if this happens, we may do this. And I'm also spot off because I feel like had they taken the time, like I said earlier, to have the track ready, they'd have been able to keep the double file restarts. But in reality, have we learned anything here is my next question.

Because if we have, next year, we start the race, like Freddie said, double file, and then we finish the race single file restarts every time after that. If they do this again halfway through the race, I can't accept that. We live and learn on this one, but we got to learn from it. I think that if you went back now, you know, in hindsight's 2020, and they can do this next year, we could have restart double file for that last 50 laps because the racetrack was better. But they took the time to make it. Yeah, they took time to water it. So like I think going into next year, I mean, the biggest things I think you're going to take away that you want to do differently,

night race because at that point the sun was starting to set a little bit shaded they hung on for five or six laps race got to be shorter like we talked about the race is too long you got to 150 laps and the track went to shit on you like that's what the dust came from there's no reason needs to be more than 150 laps more structure around rules more you know and then taking more time to get the track ready you know if you want to make it a halfway break make it like TJ said 100 and 100 you know I'm fine with that even like if it's going to be 150, 75 and 75, then, you know,

then you're probably going to keep the tires on the car. But it's just, you know, there's a lot of different things we could have done differently. But, you know, that now you learn that if you do rework the track a little bit more, instead of taking three minutes, 10 minutes, you're not, are you going to lose your audience? I mean, you're more of a viewer at that point. Are you going to lose the audience? Are they going to leave because we're taking five extra minutes to rework the racetrack? I think it pumped them up and gave them a chance to come.

Yeah, they're more excited to go, okay, what's going to happen now? It's been single file, you know. So, like, you could take a little more time and keep your double-file restarts and keep the racing better. The racing was great. You know, the racing suffered a little bit in that middle stage, I thought. And then when we went green, that's when you and Danny started putting the show on there where you're racing each other. Yeah, I bet. But, you know, I thought it was racier for 10 laps, 7-10 laps.

Yeah, it was about 7-8 laps. Guys could move around a little bit. But, like to live and learn, and we'll get better at it, I'm sure. Danny Hamlin tweets, I want a redo after the overtime restart. start on the cup race. Brett, spot on, spot off. Spot off, Denny. There are no redoes in life.

I would have taken a page out of Dale Earnhardt's book right here, and I would have kind of done the old famous Terry Labony wrecked there from back in the day. 98, 98, 2009, 2000, whatever that was at Biggie. Dumped old Terry Labani. It was just rattled his cage. I would have rattled Joey's cage, Denny. Yeah. I wish I could say what Denny did was right here, but, I mean, what was he waiting on?

What does he think Joey would have done to him? I mean, I think that he thought... Joey would have wrecked him and then grinned about him. When we smirked. When I think that when we fired off there, Denny was really good. And I think that he wasn't... I think that he wasn't forcing the issue because he thought he was going to get him. You know, like one of them deals.

Like, I'm better just guy. I don't need to force it right here. But obviously the 22 pulled away there at the end. And then I think we talked about the visibility off of two. I think he got in the fence. off it to just pushing it because I think he said in one of his interviews. He's like, I didn't know where the wall was. And that was a product

of the wall being painted black, which was not a great idea. But, you know, so he goes up there and pounds of fans, and that was really the end of his race. But, you know, it was going to get interesting there. I thought, you guys were, it was behind us. There was three or four cars between like in front of you guys. And I was like, if they jammed the bottom up here and Joey can't get off the bottom, Danny's been working the top for like four or five laps now, giving up a little bit of ground.

But if he gets stuck on the bottom, he's going to have the top working and he were able to kind of pick your way through traffic before he get there but I thought it was going to get interesting there at the end they prepped the track and it definitely made the the second lane usable and it was going away almost about after seven laps it started going away and Denny was committed to it and he just kept driving harder and harder and he just jumped the cushion in one and two I was watching him when he did it and hit the wall but that's all he really had the try you know he could have got on the bottom but honestly it was uh the way we were driving at the end was like an

asphalt race and he was getting tight behind us because he was shoving the nose when he'd get within about two car lengths in the middle one and two the front end would take off on him so that's just from my you know from what i saw but catching the lap cars holy cow like it was like here we go and joey was actually very patient and just waited until we got the right run he didn't try to move up and give up a lot of position. He waited until the door opened and the guy slid up a little bit and he kind of worked his way underneath there.

But, you know, going back to Atlanta, none of those guys moved out of our way. None of those guys. And I even came down and said something to you because how many, do you finish one down? Or what were you? Two down. But still, you're racing for something at that point

and you caught the caution right then. Yeah, it's good timing for you because I was getting ready to lock to break something, let the boss, man, win, but I mean, also, we caught the 48 down there. The 14 ran us hard. He's trying to stay on the lead lap. Forty-eight even ran lower down the backstress when we were trying to get inside of him running us really hard. Like, we didn't, you know, according to, you know, according to Atlanta, you know, comments from Atlanta, the 48 was running our lane, even though he was in front

of us. That's our lane. He needs to go ahead and move out of the way next time. I guess that's what you're supposed to do. But Joey was just very patient. And I was worried, damn. And I was worried, and he was going to find some grip at some point up there and go by. But it had to be exciting. It had to be exciting. It was fun to watch. It was not fun to watch. Entertainment value of watching that race on television is 100.

It's an 8. That's why I'm having Marty Smith on here. I want Marty's perspective, and we'll get Marty's perspective, about what it was like to watch it. It's a pain to spot, a leading car when a gals run in the top, find in speed like that. It is not fun. Like three back with a run, two back, one back?

Out, clear. Yeah. Daniel Suarez leads a career high number of laps and finishes fourth after Freddie's comments last week. Which good NASCAR Cup series driver, say top 20-ish end points is going to be the worst at dirt track racing at Bristol. Because I don't, I mean, look, we don't expect. Would Swares be included in that? Yeah, he's a top 20 driver. Like, that's something that's probably completely foreign to him, you know, where he came up, the path he took.

You know, a lot of guys that haven't been on dirt, but I feel like he come, you know, he come from. from a completely different world being down there. I hate to compare you to T.J. right here. I nailed it. But he said it was going to take Larson a while to get used to this package again. And Larson come out and won a race. And now you say Suarez is going to suck. And he goes out and wins the stage and finishes freaking good.

So basically, whoever you bash is going to end up doing that. Here's the problem with the dirt race. We didn't run a dirt race. We ran an asphalt race on dirt. That's not true. Do you see the beginning of the truck race? Beginning of the truck race was a long time before. the beginning of the cup race.

You're like Kayser, you're backing up, man. Not a chance. Hey, I mean, the guy did a great job. Obviously, I was wrong, but the, the, where you guys, where dirt guys gain, where a dirt guy, it's much like a road course racer, where a dirt guy has the advantage over a non-dirt guy is throwing the car in the corner, getting it to hook up, you know, running the cushion, whatever. Did we do any of that?

There wasn't a cushion. There was no, all you did. I mean, there was, there was a cushion. when Denny was running the top? Yeah, for three laps. Seven. You said it was eight to ten, actually. But I'm talking about that's after a rework.

Where was it the rest of the day? It never built a berm. Like a berm. We never had a true cushion. The problem was, and we saw this in practice. I had a cushion under my house on my couch. We had moisture up there they were using for it. The track went to the line you had to run, especially like practice.

I don't know if it got as bad in the race, but it was pretty close. You ran the same line you did when they put the PJ1 on the bottom. As low and straight into the. corners you could and just hook the bottom all the way around and try to keep the right rear tucked in on exit a little bit. Yeah, by the end of the race on TV, it looked like the old concrete Bristol. Like I'm talking the one from before they did the rebanking of it. I liked it, though, because guys, like, the guys like Martin would run a lane up. You ran a lane up into three or half a lane up, and you turned down.

It was fast. I was actually, I was counting Joey down. Hey, Bubba's running this line. He's really fast right now. And I'm like, Joey wouldn't move. And I'm like, is he? like, hello, this thing on? Are you going to move up?

And then he told me, he's like, I didn't do that because I felt like it's burning the right rear out. So, and it showed, but you're right. It looked like an old Bristol. If you miss the bottom a little bit, here comes that guy, which I think, I wish we could do that again. I just wish, and I think it's why you see it more at Eldora, because one of the biggest issues was, we're not on a dirt track. Nope, we're not. It's not like the trucks are going to go to Knoxville, and I think that's going to be a way better show at the end of the year because that's a dirt track. And it's kind of built to run that way.

and this is, and like I said, the same thing we see to road course. Why is AJ Almonding a really good at road course racing? Because he can drive in two car lengths deeper than somebody, get it slowed down, hit his apex. Like any time you watch data like that, you're like, how the hell is that guy getting in the corner like that? I can't do that, whatever.

Same thing. Like if this thing is tacky and slick and there's a cushion, it's freezing. Them guys are going to show, you know, they're going to have an advantage because they can throw the thing in the corner a completely different way, yawed out and make it work, where now you're just, you're going back to straight, low, slow on entry. Like, it's not a, it's not going to lend itself to a guy that's been running dirt all of his life.

36 cars, 250 laps. I've never seen a dirt race with that many cars like that. And I was honestly surprised because I think the truck race, obviously, you're getting a little bit further down in experience level, but the truck race, I think the longest green flag run was like 13 laps or something like that. And we talked about on here, what we say, 75 laps. and I was surprised, and I think it's a product of adding those extra cautions. But, you know, we ran them.

I don't remember a lot of wrecking. You know what I mean? I mean, there's a couple big wrecks, but I don't remember. It wasn't like we had a wreck every 10 laps like the truck race did. There was way more mistakes, though. Oh, yeah, for sure. Which I like. These guys are finally making mistakes and missing corners and stuff.

We don't ever see that. We talk about it on here all the time. We want tires to wear out. We want the cars harder to drive. And that was it. So maybe we just cover everything in dirt. Hell with it. done what was the leading i saw your tweet about what tracks is people want to cover it in dirt what was

the leader man i don't know i there were people literally all over the place um i i just think it's a shame that bristol motor speedway lost a date again next year uh i mean i i hate to see that like i wish there was a way to still run two two bristles and then do the dirt thing right but obviously that's not the brist does bristol just become a dirt track now I don't know. I hope not. They run a lot more events there now that are dirt than they did before. That's the thing.

I mean, we were running five or six races a year. They put dirt down and they run 20 dirt races in the last two weeks. They've got more coming. Yeah, outlaws and stuff. I'll tell you what, I can't wait to watch that world. Outlaws and yeah. They're going to be so fast. I don't know if I can watch it.

It's going to be hard to watch. Are you crazy? Why? They are going to haul ass around there. You want one of your, you want Chad to get out there and do it? I don't. It just looks, it's so cool. Like that track is just from a TV perspective.

It was scary to me. It was so cool to watch. I've watched them run Syracuse. That was scary to me watching them run Syracuse. I was in that Midget Monday deal, and they were talking about how they have to prep the track to be like really slick. Like gravel was in there.

And he was like, I hope they make it slick because if they make it tacky where there's any kind of grip, he's like, it's going to be too dangerous. Too dangerous. Yeah, I agree with that. Spot on, spot off. Freddie bales on Bubba Wallace in the truck race and stays with Derek Kraus,

who clobbered John Hunter Neimanjek after his spin. And then, of course, J.HN had this to say. They're towards the end of that whole deal. The 19, I guess him and his spotter, both need a pair of glasses. So I'll have those for them at Richmond. Bring them. Maui Jims. Tweeted it. What happened?

So my end of this. See what happened was. And you guys have been here before, I think. I don't know if I came into a red head a little before. Brett is never wrong. I never wrecked seven seconds after the first one. It was way more than seven seconds. I think.

But, you know, like, if you're in turn, which we were, we're in turn three, maybe four, and this wreck happens in one. And I'm like, I didn't, like, it's not a wreck. It's not like, oh, check up, check up, no, no, no, no what I mean? It's not a panic. You know, so I'm like, all right, stay low one and two. Stay low and one and two. And the yellow's not out.

Like, the yellow doesn't come out. We're already sliding when the yellow. It's a late yellow, and it's tough to see, whatever. It's a black truck up against a black wall. So maybe that's a problem. problem. But like we're when the yellow comes out, we're sliding already. Like I know like we started sliding at the end of the front stretch. And I talked to Derek a little bit about it. And I just said, you know, what happened? And he said that he, and we talked about this on the show last week. He said,

I saw the four truck, panicked, jumped on the brakes. As soon as I jumped on the brakes, truck spun out and I was sliding from that point on. Like, you know, so, you know, it's just, I probably, I probably had to do something differently to make it, make him better aware of, of I don't really know exactly what I should have done differently, but I need to do something differently, obviously, because we wrecked into a wreck that was an hour later. But, you know, in my mind, I was like, it's going to be easy to miss this.

You know what I mean? It's like, all right, it's car up top. Stay low in one and two. Stay low in one and two. Good luck. Holy shit. We're sliding. Hang on.

We're coming. I was like, I was dumbfounded when I was like, did that just happen? Like, the son of it. Of course it's happened. And we're racing the shit out of like Timothy Peters and Stewie or somebody. or somebody's in front of us. Timothy got stopped.

No, he didn't. He wrecked. He didn't wreck. He just stopped. He hit the wall. Barely. Better than a truck sitting there. Well, he was going straight.

We were backwards. It's hard to go backwards. He kept going. He didn't finish it on the April with all the fluid on the track. The guy that was up there for, the guy that's been raising trucks forever was wrecked with us there. Oh, man. So clearly spot off, assuming. Spot.

No, I mean. Spot on for the comments. Yeah, spot. I like the comments. I like John Hunter. I mean, I used to. You might have Richmond if he brings you glasses. I was going to say, if he brings me the right pair of glasses,

I'll be back on Team John Hunter. But I get it for him. I mean, he spins out. Well, he got dumped. I wonder what Garrett Smithley was thinking when he heard that clip. I was just thinking that, man, Garrett high-fi of somebody when that happened. Maybe he was on my radio.

Who needs enemies when you got friends like this? Oh, boy. Oh, no other comment. sir, Brett. No, I thought it was funny. Freddy just made everyone else more valuable. So Freddie texts me in the middle of last week, and he's like, hey, I got a spot for Kraus. You want to come up here and spot for Bubba?

And I was like, man, I can't because I had some things already kind of going on. And when I watched this, when I watched this go down, I was like, man, thank goodness. Like Freddie didn't spot for Bubba and he made me to spot for Krause and he's actually been able to do it because then I would look like an idiot. You do that all on your own. Don't you worry. I think everybody's involved in a Bristol wreck that just something happens in fronty and just, like there's just, it's kind of, I don't know, the driver just racing so hard at time, just kind of, you know, it only takes a few, like two seconds of.

No, I was like, what do here? Oh, gosh. You know what I mean? Yeah, stuff happens fast. I think he got caught. I think if I had to guess, he got caught up racing the guy in front of him, just thought I could run into one and stay low. It's not going to be a problem.

and then saw, you know, just panicked. I think he just panicked, locked the brakes up, and then it was over. Like, he started wrecking before the entry to one. Like, as soon as we, he like turned off the wall and he saw the, he got on the brakes, and it was over from that point. We all have our moments where we live and learn. I was at Richmond. I was spotting a bush race for Michael Waltrip.

This would have probably been like 2001 or two. And we were too wide getting into one. At the last minute, somebody crammed it three wide on the bottom. Oh, yeah. And I didn't say three wide. So Michael entered like he was too wide. that we got punted. And he called me after the race.

He's like, was I three wide right there? And I was like, yep. He said, why don't you tell me? I was like, it's on me. It happened so fast. I just didn't tell you. Guess what? That never happened again.

So you take those moments where you screw up. And look, we all do it, man. We're humans. That's what makes the show what it is. I've screwed up my share. I've caused Rex. I own them. I'm a man about it.

Big shoulders. But, yeah, that deal was fun to watch, Freddie. Sorry. I got that at Pocono with Del Jr. We were back in 28th on a restart, and we went down into one. We were on the bottom, and Colwitt thought the way bottom was going to be better, and you know turn one at Pocono. And I told Dale Jr., before the race, during the race,

hey, once you get to the end of the pit wall, you're kind of responsible for the inside of the car at that point. And we go into one, get spun out. He comes down across, and we didn't hit anything, thankfully. And he's like, ah, you know, why don't you? I didn't know there was a car there. And I said, well, me neither. So, and I'm like, he goes, was there a car there? I'm like, I don't know, man, you're a mile away from me.

Like, what do you want me to tell you? I don't know. You can't tell sometimes. I'll tell you something else that came out of this whole deal was so now we're wrecked. We're sitting over there. They go red to clean the track up. Water from the radiator. So Derek's in his truck, and I can't see the right side of it.

Turned out we had like a broken truck armed. The truck's wrecked. But I can't see. I know we slid in, but we're not going that fast, really. So I don't know how bad the truck is. So I'm like, don't get out. When they go back to red, you know, back to yellow, we'll come down pit road and look at it. Well, the safety worker's like, hey, get out.

You got to get out. He's like, they're telling me to get out. I said, no, don't get out. You don't have to get out. There's nothing. You know, you're fine. So they're like, they're telling them, your trucks tore up. You're not going to, you're done.

So now the safety worker is telling him, you're done. So whatever we go back, they go back and forth. I'm yelling at my official. I'm like, tell him just leave him alone. Well, if we come down pit road and we're done, he'll go to the care center. He's fine. So then they get us fired up. They're like, they tell us to fire up to get kind of pointed.

Yeah, you got in trouble. So they point, so he fires it up. The guy's telling him, okay, go ahead, go ahead, you know, go ahead. So he fires it up, he's moving. They start yelling at me, moving under red. Oh, I stop, stop. He's like, well, the guy's telling me to go. So now here you go again.

Now this guy almost gets parked because the official's telling the wrong thing. So then the guy reaches in the truck and hits all the switches. And Derek's like he broke the starter switch off. Like, what are these people doing over there? Like, if the guy wants to get out, if he thinks his day, the problem is, if you, I don't know if you guys understand this or not, but if Derek gets out of the truck right there, you're done. I'm done.

The race is over. No matter what the right side of the track looks, truck looks like, your race is over. You're out of the race now. You come to pit road and they go, oh, it's just a tire and we had to beat the fender out. Oh, too bad. Sorry, you race is over because you got out of a truck over there and went to care center. So, like, listen, if you guys are safety workers or tow truck drivers or whatever, just make make sure the driver's all right.

and then let him decide what he wants to do. If he wants to get car toed, pushed, whatever, just do it. Like, why is a safety worker reaching in our truck and hitting any of our switches? I don't understand that. Here's what always makes me laugh, right? I see a driver. He's been in a wreck. He's mad.

He gets out of the car. And the first thing they do when he gets out of the car is they grab and they touch him. Man, get the fuck off of me. I'm pissed off. I don't know you. I'm fine. I don't like people touching me anyway. Don't be grabbing me.

I'm watching on TV. I'm like, man, why do you feel the need to touch this guy right now? That's the last thing he wants is some stranger touching him. That's like I have a bone to pick here. When you wreck and you get out of the car, like a midget. Like when people interview you right when you get out of the car. They do it all the time of Chili Bowl. Oh, my gosh.

Dylan's interview is my favorite. But anyways, we won't get into that. That's honestly the best interview. I look forward to those. I mean, for a fans' perspective, it's awesome. But, like, you know a driver just wants to kill somebody. Yeah, but that's, I'm more, I'd rather have an interview than the guy touch him. I laughed.

There was a guy, was it Casey Schumann, I think, last year. Oh, no, no, no, no, it was Marchum. It was Marchham. Two years ago, Aaron Reitzel wrecked him, and Aaron Roussel's a big dude. And Casey Marcham's like, he's wrecked me twice this week, and if he wasn't so damn big, I'd go over there and whoop his ass. That's funny. That's awesome. Oh.

All right. after this break, we're going to have my longtime friend. Mark Dogg, Marty Smith from ESPN in the house. All right, this door member clear podcast is brought to you by our friends at racing USA.com. America's online headquarters for NASCAR merchandise

for more than 20 years. The entire Racing USA team wanted us to personally congratulate TJ and the entire 22 team on their historic win at the inaugural Bristol Dirt race. They also wanted us to let Joey's fans know that a race win t-shirt and three race

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years. Mark Dogg, how you been, brother? What's up, big time? Man, I'm paying rent. You know how it is. I'm, uh, I'm a very blessed man. Everything's great. My family's good. Works crazy, but y'all know about that.

I can't complain to y'all about that. But dude, if I complained, I ought to have my ass with. So I got to ask you, man. We've been buddies a long time. Laney's put up with you for even longer than that. How many years you and Lainty been kicking it? It will be 21 years on May 20th. How about that?

How about that, man? That's good stuff. We go way back. So I want people to hear how you got into NASCAR, how you became such a big fan, and ultimately how you ended up at NASCAR.com, which is when I met you. Yeah, so it was really an interesting path for me

because as a kid, of course, I grew up in Appalachia. I grew up in a little farm town in southwest Virginia, about 20 miles west of Virginia Tech called Peresburg. and a lot, my buddies of me all farmed and our family's own farms and whatnot. So I kind of came in time where I took at Deller and Hart, Richard Petty and David Pearson like gods. And so I grew up a Davy Allison fanatic as a kid. And then when Davey died, I just couldn't find another guy. Like I couldn't, for whatever reason, it really impacted me.

And then as a junior in college, fast forward. several years and when I was a junior in college, about five years later, the day he passed, I was at the time what's called a stringer, and any of y'all who know anything about the newspaper business know that that's somebody that newspapers pay per article, basically. And I was covering high school sports for the Roanoke Times newspaper in Virginia. And when the school year ended, they sent me to cover the local short track, which was then New River Valley Speedway. It's now called motor mile. And I was not into NASCAR very much at that moment, but dude, two laps into watching Philip Morris and Jeff Agnew beat the absolute hell out of each other to win a Saturday

night show at New River Valley Speedway. I went, I know what I want to do with my life. And from that second on, I made it my mission that I was going to NASCAR and I was going to get the cup as fast as I could. I didn't know exactly what that path was yet. But when I graduated from Radford University in 98, I got a job in Lynchburg, Virginia, and my two beats were Liberty University football and NASCAR Cup racing. And so I went to like Martinsville and Richmond and Bristol and Charlotte, the regional tracks that I could drive to. And I wrote a NASCAR column every week, one of which was on a guy named Paul Brooks.

Brett, I know you know who Paul is. Paul at the time had been promoted to vice president office of the president was his title and he was from Lynchburg and his mom called me still live there and said hi Marty I wonder if you'd like to do a story on my son well sure what's your son do I figure it was going to be Joe Bob Jordan the street stock driver down the street and and she said his name's Paul Brooks I said all right what's Paul Brooks do well he just got promoted to vice president of NASCAR and I went by, hey, oh, yeah, you need to give me Paul Brooks's number. And I called Paul, and we hit it off, and I wrote a piece.

And one thing kind of led to the next, led to the next. And a job opening happened here in Charlotte at what was then NASCAR online, and it was only three or four years old at the time. That's how old we are, y'all, who were listening. Hell, we, there wasn't an internet when we were in high school. But anyway, I moved to Charlotte. I went from making $12,800 a year to making about $19. and you and me met and started drinking beers every single day

and running around the country, chase the race cars. And you talk about the time of your life, man, because the only thing that mattered was fast cars. And like I was just so full of wonder at that time. I'd never been anywhere. So you know what my first race was with NASCAR corporate? Sonoma, California.

So I got on an airplane, and I flew from Charlotte to San Francisco, and I landed in San Francisco, and I got out and I got in a rental car, and I went, holy, I don't know where I am. Did I land on Mars? Because I'd never been anywhere. I was as country bumpkin as you could find,

and man, from there, it's just been one blessing upon the next, upon the next, upon the next. And y'all, Brett ain't lying. He was one of my first friends in the sport. He really embraced me, and we raised more heads. then you can shake a stick at. You're the first person to come on here that ever said bread ain't lying.

But, I mean, I mean, so I get asked this all the time because I might, maybe I picked up a torch where you left it, but we've been running pretty hard for a while now. And, and I mean, I always say I can't because I don't, I can never think of one. Do you have any good Brett Griffin stories? I mean, because everyone I can tell is not suitable for public knowledge, I don't think. Yeah, the vast majority of mine are better left locked away over here. here somewhere too. We definitely don't need to tell on ourselves right here, Marty.

Oh, please do. Yeah, I'm trying to, I'm trying to think of one. There's no PG was to tell. No, there's really not. I mean, like, we did have a, we had a rain out one time in Richmond. I think a damn tornado came through. It did. And, and I don't even remember what year that was, 2001, two, I don't even know, it was years

ago and they NASCAR in an unprecedented maneuver canceled the race for the next day. So we're all stranded in Richmond. That's bad news. Yeah, with nothing to do. So I can tell

you that young Mr. Griffin and I found some random bowling alley and we bowled, we drank them out of beer and I think I was saying she thinks my tractor sexy 47 times on the karaoke box. For sure.

One of the things that you did, and I'm going to compare you to Barney Hall right here, Barney Hall came in, and he was really good at developing relationships with the drivers. We don't see that a lot with our media. Like we may see them have one person they got a relationship with, but when I got here, man, I couldn't believe how close Barney Hall and David Pearson were.

And Barney Hall and a lot of the drivers, you came in here and you didn't just work to be a media member. you worked really hard to be in the relationship business with these drivers. How in the world did you do it and do it so well? Because I don't see that these days. Well, honestly, brother, that hasn't changed. My philosophy and my approach haven't changed. The sport has.

And I mean the sports I cover. I take the same exact approach with college football coaches and players. I take the same exact approach with professional golfers now. you know, Bob, world famous horse trainers, whoever that is, I'm a relationship guy.

And when it comes to the drivers themselves, I mean, you and I came in in an era, in the end of the 90s and the early 2000 era, where Dale Jr., Elliot Sadler, Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray,

all these guys who are just bad-ass human beings, Jimmy Johnson, Kevin Harvick, all these guys, they're just, they're fun dudes. And they were all really young like us. They were our age. They were all racing bush cars, which was a different world than Cup. When I first came in, I covered the trucks in the Bush Series, basically, almost exclusively. I did some Cup, but it was pretty rare in 98, 99 that I was doing Cup Series.

So we'd go to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to race some race on July 4th weekend. And you remember Summerfest? Oh, yeah. Big deal. Hell, we'd go watch the damn violent films play on the front row and with the drivers. And so it was pretty, my whole philosophy was pretty simple. Like, I like being liked. It's one of my greatest insecurities.

And so that's the approach that I take. Like I try to develop beyond a rapport. I want a relationship with those people with the caveat. And you can ask every one of those people that I just mentioned. They all know if they screw up, I'm reporting on it. And I'm going to be as honest as a human being can be. I'm going to be fair and I'm going to be accurate because if you screw up, it's on you. It ain't on me.

And so, like I remember in 2006, I guess it was when Johnson broke his wrist. surfing on top of a golf cart like a jackass. After about a bottle of Tila. Yeah, yeah, he was on one. And so I report that, and he was furious at me that I had reported it. And I'm like, dude, like, you're the champion of, he's like, why is it news? That's not a story. I was doing it on my own time.

And I'm like, brother, I understand that it might be frustrated, but you're the champion of one of the five biggest sports on earth. It is news. And eventually you're going to understand that that was not my fault. If I didn't report it, somebody would have. It would have came out. And honestly, it's better for you if I'm the one saying it, because I'm going to be as fair as human being to be.

So, yeah, that was kind of always my approach. And again, it still is. Like, I feel like I have really good relationships with a lot of the, most famous and successful coaches in the history of college football. And I like it that way. Ultimately, I'm able to get some stories and some insight that maybe some other folks can't as a result. Awesome, man. So when you look at your career, you leave NASCAR.com, you go to ESPN.

I didn't know that you were going to become as big as you did in the TV world aside of reporting. Did you know that that opportunity was going to be there? Not just no, but hell. know. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you it was interesting, brother, because so kind of the story behind that is my son Camberon is now 15. And he was born in November of 05. And in the springtime of 06, he and I were riding down the highway in my pickup truck. We'd gone to Costco in South Charlotte to get a sheet cake. For what? I don't know. But It comforted him as an infant to be in my truck with Eric Church playing.

So I took him on this ride to get this cake and my phone rings. And I'm super shady about numbers I don't know. I screen everything. But an 860 number pops up. And for whatever reason, I felt led to answer it. So I answer it. And it was a guy on the other end named Jack Obringer from ESPN. And he said, hey, Marty, my name's Jack Obringer.

I need you to keep what I'm about to tell you under your hat. It's not for public knowledge yet. But we're coming back into NASCAR. We're going to be broadcasting the sport again, starting next season. And I've begun the process of putting together my reporting team for our ancillary programming. Sports Center. We're going to have a daily show called NASCAR now, ESPN News, et cetera. and man, everybody we talk to says your name,

that you know the drivers really well, that you have a great pulse of the news in the sport, you're tuned in in the garage and connected in the garage, and you know what's going on. And I'd like to talk to you about, now this is not a job offer, but I want you to think about potentially coming over. And you know what I did?

I said, oh, man, hey, I'm so great. I appreciate you. You got the wrong Marty. There's a guy named Marty Snyder, who is awesome. And that's who you meant to call because he is a baller on TV and he's very well connected, a great, that's who they're talking about. He goes, no, no, no, no, no. I know who Marty Snyder is too.

They're talking about you. Just think about it. I said, Jack, I've never done TV. I don't know anything about TV. And he said, that doesn't matter. I need who and what you know. I'll teach you TV. And Griff, you know me a really long time.

I'm a guy. I would rather crash and burn and fail knowing I can. then wonder when I'm 75 if I could have. And so I came home and I said to Lainey, I said, baby, I think ESPN just offered me a job. She goes, for what? ESPN.com? I said, no, like to be on TV. And she goes, she goes, what? I said, we got to think about this and pray on it.

I don't know. But ultimately, man, I knew it was right. Now, did I know that the chess game was going to unfold the way it did? I mean, you can't, there's no way to know that. I'm a grain of sand. And I'm in the Sahara. And I know that. And we could go down a rabbit hole and I could give you all these different things that happened that led to where I'm currently sitting that are beyond comprehension.

But to answer your question simply, no, there is no way that anyone could have guessed that someone who was hired as a NASCAR insider. who got one minute to 90 seconds of TV a week could end up covering the college football playoff in the Masters. Like, no, no, no. So same time you find out you get this dream job. Fast forward, ESPN leaves a sport. You've got to decide, man, if I stay here, I'm not going to cover NASCAR like I always have, which goes back to your dream job when you were in college. I want to do this.

Like, what was that like, that transition? It was crazy because to your point, you're very astutes, to your point, you know, we all knew that in D.C. No. Yeah. Y'all, listen, the man, the man needs some self-confidence. We got to pump up. Yeah, that's exactly what he needs. He has enough of that.

I can guarantee you. I'm actually a little disappointed in y'all. I figured we'd do this about 7.45 a night so I could have a cold. I mean, nobody's not. you now. I know. All the 97 practices I have to take my kids to later. That's what stopped me.

So let me walk you through how that unfolded because it's a storybook, too. It's kind of crazy. So we knew that NBC was coming into the sport and that ESPN was leaving. And so what do I do? Do I go to Fox or NBC and really stay entrenched into garage? that assuming they even wanted, right, and stay entrenched in the garage after 17 seasons. Or do I go, man, I'm going, I'm going to re-sign at ESPN,

who I know still wants me. And hold on a minute, y'all, my dog wants out. Yo, pain in my butt. Anyway, so do I stay at ESPN and bet on myself? and ultimately that's the decision I made and I didn't care if I got sent to cover the chainsaw races out in Idaho or the cornhole championships I was ready to see what was out there for me

y'all ain't going to like so this is the craziest story ever so I come home from Miami Florida last race of the 2014 NASCAR season and I walk into my house on a month Monday morning. And those of y'all who are road warriors and who are buried, know this play. You know this act. Your spouse is exhausted. They're just utterly exhausted because they've been on an island. And my wife isn't champion. She is such a champion for me chasing my dreams and loving and being the absolute best at what I do. She's not a complainer. That's not who she is.

but I come home from that final race in 2014, she had tears in her eyes. She said, Martin, I need you home. We had eight, five, and two at home at the time, and I'd basically been gone 100 of 130 or 40 days. And so I'm like, don't worry, honey. My new contract doesn't start until January 1st. I'm going to be home for six weeks.

I'm all in. I'm dad. I'm husband. I'm involved. I'm engaged. I sit down on my couch. We put our older two in the car for her to take him to school. I sit down on my couch.

I opened up my email, and the very first email in there was from a guy named Lee Fitting. Lee now runs all of football at ESP, and he oversees Monday night football, all of our college football coverage, the college football playoff, college game day, all of it. At the time, he was the executive producer of college game day. And this email says, hey, Marty, I'm Lee Fitting. My name's Lee Fitting. I'm the executive producer of college game day. You belong in college football. Your passion belongs in college football.

I want you to start studying because I'm going to embed you with one of the four schools that qualifies for the inaugural college football player. I was holding my – I may as well have been reading like Sanskrit or so. I couldn't believe what I was reading because sports-centric people. And look, we can think NASCAR is global all we want. it's still pretty niche. So for someone who is a reporter in a niche sport to be asked to go to one of ESPN's most important platforms like that, it's honestly unheard of.

Like imagine Barry Melrose who covers hockey all of a sudden being on a field at the NFL playoffs. You'd kind of be like, you know when a dog's confused and they kind of cocked their head, I think that's how college football fans were when they saw me, the NASCAR guy, embedded with the Ohio State Buckeyes of all teams. So off I went and I studied my tail off. And Ohio State went on to win the national title that year with Ezekiel Elliott and Joey Bosa and Michael Thomas

and the whole Cardale Jones movie that got written in Urban Meyer and the whole thing. And a lot of fans were. were confused and they were like, what in the hell is this? And I had to win them. I had to win them. And I don't blame them for feeling that way because it, you know, as a hardcore college football fan, if somebody that I didn't, that I knew from another sport was covered, I'd be so confused by that.

But ultimately it worked. And I've just, I can't believe the ride I've been on, dude. I just can't. You made rednecks proud everywhere. I can tell you that. And speaking of rednecks, we were dirt track racing this week. you can, man. Tell me what you thought. I thought it was killer. The jury was out for me. I was not sold. I was like, I have to see this. I have to see what it really is before I can form an opinion.

And I mean, I liked it. And with all the crap that the sport had to go through, like what a bummer Sunday was. And then for Monday to be a really good show, I felt like it was a really good show. I was wearing junior out the whole, he and I were texting back and forth the whole race. And, you know, you can hear his opinions on it on his podcast. But, you know, I said to him during the race, I said, I don't know about this. I can't decide if it's awesome or if it's awful.

I said, but you know what would be awesome? Is if Marcus tore the pavement up at Wilkesboro and, like, made it a dirt track. Make it a dirt track. And let's go run there for every year. let's go run there. And then I couldn't believe, I haven't listened to that podcast yet, but I know Marcus said something about Wilkesboro.

So I texted junior, I texted junior last night. I said, I'm Nostradamus, son. I was right. He's going to do it. But ultimately, I thought it was really cool. What did y'all think about it? I said to Freddie, you know, I was a sports fan this weekend. And had I been racing, I think I'd have been really frustrated,

had I been a spotter this weekend. But as a fan, I gave it a 100, man. I gave it an A. Yep. I was about a... Yeah, I just felt like it was so cool to see. Like, I don't know all the work that Joey Lugano or Chase Elliott or some of those guys put in. I know they went and ran like dirt modifies and all that kind of stuff to kind of get the feel and whatnot.

But for them to beat that, like to be, to win, I just, I thought Kyle Larson would laugh the field four times. that's where I would have put my money. I think T.J. liked it. He has the greatest race ever. I imagine T.J. did like it. I can tell you this, though. Congratulations to y'all. Thank you.

Leading up to it, there's probably Joey put in a lot of work, man. Joey's always put a lot of work in. Man, we've had so many conversations about it. What do you think, track? What about this? What about that? There's probably no race we've had more conversations about other than Daytona 500 at the beginning of the year.

As far as like studying things, there was really no nothing to study, but I watched a ton of races during the week when they ran there, when the Dirt Nationals or whatever they were called. And I think Joey did as well just to kind of see where guys would move. But our race actually turned into a way different type race than that. But a lot of prep went into it. So it was just, it was nice to have a shot at the end. And man, when they groomed that track a little bit and for that last 50 laps and the top, came in a little bit. It got a lot closer than I wanted to be at the end,

but it had to be a great show with Danny running the top and, you know, making up ground and Joey rolling the bottom really good. It had to be a great race. He's, man, I, Denny Hamlin's just a freaking stud. I mean, that dude's a wheelman. We agree. I mean, just a straight-up wheelman. And, I mean, and I don't know what I expected when Denny came in.

I knew he was, let me go back to Junior a minute, because I still find this to be fascinating. What racers see that someone like me who doesn't have that level of knowledge or that level of vision sees. I remember this was probably 2007 or six. I did a piece on Kyle Bush and how Kyle was the future. And he's this young kid and Rick Hendricks tabbed him to drive the five car. And he's just going to like the sport on.

he's going to be a great one. And obviously, that was a correct prediction. But I asked Dale Jr. about it one time at a media availability. He goes, Denny Hamlin. I'd never heard of Denny Hamlet. So it must have been before 06. It must have been like 05 because Denny came in in 06, right? I think.

So he goes, no. He said, watch this guy, Denny Hamlet. Just remember that name, Denny Hamlet. And I was like, who? Man, there he is. I mean, I can't believe how many. wins he has. I can't believe. And I'm not in no way, shape, or form am I being, am I saying that he's like exceeded my expectations. I don't know what my expectations were,

but I think he's destined to win a title. I just, they're just awesome everywhere. I think the, I think the indie race is really the only thing left on his bucket list as far as I got to do this. You know, three-day Daytona 500s, like you said, I mean, the guy has been been phenomenal. Look, man, we didn't mean to keep you this long. I love you to death. I see a book behind you, never settle. If you don't have a copy of that.

Marty, tell us what's in that book, man. Tell us why we should buy it. I'm floored by it, to be honest with you, man. I had the opportunity a couple years ago. My agent called me and said, hey, man, there's a couple of publishers that have reached out who are just intrigued by you. And the people that you cover and the stories that you've done on TV

and the way that you live your life, at least what they see. And so I flew up to New York and I met with a couple of publishers. And 12 books is my publisher. Sean Desmond is the guy who I met with. He's my publisher at 12 books. And we sat up there on Fifth Avenue and we had a conversation. And I decided to do this book.

And it's called Never Settle. And basically what it is is it's all of these amazing experience. that I've been blessed to have. It's talking about losing your daddy too early with Nick Saban the day you meet him. It's going to China with the most famous athlete on the planet, Cristiano Ronaldo, and learning about his life and trying to humanize him. It's sitting across from Tiger Woods before he won the Masters.

This was March 1, 2018, after he had his back fused. and laughing and crying and learning about all of it. It's all of these amazing experiences. Dale Jr., like discussing one of the greatest lessons I've ever gotten in my life was from Jr. Shut up. I'll tell you that story real quick. In 2012, I did an interview with Jeff Gordon at Daytona. And it was, it was, I felt like I had, I had prepared well for this interview,

and I wasn't going to let Jeff veer off of the path that I wanted the interview to go. And when that happened, I would cut Jeff off and I would try to steer it back my way. Well, I thought I was just some kind of badass because I felt like it went really well. A couple weeks later, the piece airs at Loudoun, New Hampshire. And after the race, I was outside the 88 car, shocking ESPN wanted some junior sound after the race. and there's probably 25 reporters out there with me, 25 reporters, and Junior gets out of the car,

and he's, I don't know what drivers are looking at when they get out, and they're like looking at the car after the race. What the hell they're looking at out? Anyway, so he's like looking at his car, and he turns and looks at me, and he kind of gives me one of these commier things.

I'm like, me? So I walk over to him, and he kind of pushes me up to the edge of the, of the transporter, and turns his back to the crowd. and he goes, you need to shut up. And I said, excuse me? I mean, y'all know.

Like, that dude's like my brother. I'm like, excuse me? He goes, you need to shut up, man. You need to stop interrupting people. I said, what the hell are you talking about? He goes, I was watching that interview you did with Jeff. And there were things he was saying that I wanted to hear his opinion. I wanted to hear him finish.

And you cut him off. You need to stop cutting people off. It's rude. And I felt about. about an inch tall. And you want to know why I felt an inch tall? Because I knew he was right. That's a Dell Senior moment for Dale Jr.

Like that's something that Del Senior would have done to somebody. It completely changed my entire approach, guys, because I stopped interviewing people with insecurity, and I started interviewing people with confidence. Because when you're willing to let someone ask open-ended questions and let someone tell you their story, then ultimately you have your mouth, shut and your ears open and you're listening.

And it was honestly one of the greatest things a friend could ever do for me. And he hates when I, he's like, man, stop telling that damn story about me telling you to shut up. Dude, I love it. Last question, because it's got to be a fault. You might have any of us get any questions in? I'm sorry, me, I had seen, talk to Marty. Last question from me, Marty, all those people you just named, all those big, you and

you and I are sports freaks. Somebody had to have freaked you out. When that name came across your desk and said, hey, you're, you're, you, you're getting ready to go spend a bunch of time with this person, which one made you nervous? Like one of those had to have scared you. I don't really get nervous, but I'll tell you, Tiger, Tiger was a unique one because I just didn't know what I was going to,

I didn't know what I was going to get. Like, am I going to get, am I going to be able to kind of crack this code? And let me tell you guys the greatest story. So, all right. So last race of 2017 back to Miami, it's Junior's last race, right? He gets out of the 88 car, and I go over to interview him for SportsCenter. Y'all may remember this interview, I don't know.

But we're standing beside his race car, and I interview these crews all around, and they're slamming red label buds, and everybody's just enjoying them, which is what Junior wanted. He wanted to have this authentic moment with. his boys with the guys that have sacrificed to make him better in his career. It was just this beautiful scene. Well, I go in, and I probably said eight words, ten words in the whole interview, and he was just beautiful.

He had this beautiful vulnerability about him. And he hits me, when the interview's over, he hits me on the chest. He goes, what we're going to do now? I said, well, what we're going to do is we're going to shotgun one of them Budweisers. He told me one them damn Budwisers. So out of the nothing. out of the night comes this Budweiser and I catch it and I crack it open. And, you know, me and him slam these buds on the Scott Man Pelt Show.

And so fast forward back to Tiger. I'm in the clubhouse at Medalist Golf Club down in Florida. That's Tiger's home course. And I'm going over this list of 10 questions that I want to ask him, like these topics that I want to get to. And this shadow washes across the doorway. And I look up into my left, and it's Tiger freaking Woods. And like, I don't care.

Whether you love golf or not, I love golf. Whether you, like, it's Tiger. He's the most dominant athlete, certainly of his era, and maybe ever. I mean, he's in the conversation forever. And for whatever reason, in behind Tiger Woods is Larry Fitzgerald. I think they had a Nike thing that day or something. But anyway, Tiger comes in and I hop up, and I'm like, man, All right, here we go.

So I go to shake his hand, and he grabs my hand, and he kind of gives me this bro hug. So he goes, you know what? He said, I got to tell you something. He said, you know one of the best things I've ever seen on ESPN? I said, what? He goes, man, when you shotgun that beer with Dail Earnhardt Jr. after his race, he goes, that was awesome.

And I'm going, I sit there going, Tiger, me and you're going to get alone. Just fine, brother. And y'all, I'm not even kidding you. Like from that, from that moment. He was so gracious to me. He agreed to give me 20 minutes. We went almost 40. And it was just the most surreal time.

And since then, I've been blessed to interview him several times subsequently. And he's just been so gracious to me. And I don't know why, but I'm very grateful for that. You know, Ronaldo was interesting. Sabin was interesting the first time, but me and him have gotten pretty close. So, yeah, I mean, certainly there's people who have intimidating presences. Is presence as a word? I'm going to use, I'm going to make you count if it's not.

Yeah, it is in a country. So obviously I don't have the relationship, well, we've never met, obviously, and we'll have to change that next time to three of us are in the same place because I think we all have a common interest in beer. But so, you know, going back and trying to figure out, you know, what the hell I was going to talk to you about. There's a buddy of mine that you may know, and he fed me a little bit of information. He wanted me ask you about what it was like to drive a $300,000 Ashton Martin. And then you could tell me if this is the same story because he said something about there was a curb in and out maybe.

Okay. So I don't know what ESPN and Formula One were thinking. But last weekend, they sent Ryan McGee and me to Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, California, to Beverly Hills. and handed us a $300,000 Astin Martin Vantage drop top and said, drive it around LA so we can capture some content.

And of the assignments I've gotten, that one may be the tip of the spear for I ain't going to ask any questions because they might figure me out. Well, we did. We drove all around L.A. And we captured a bunch of content. and that thing will get up and go.

I felt like a pansy. I don't know if I had the traction control on or what, but we were on the eighth story of this parking garage, and I'm like, screw, I ain't going to have a however many hundred horsepower car and not try to light this thing up. And I tried my tail and I failed. Like, I somehow left all this rubber,

but I couldn't get it. I wanted to do a donuts, man, and I just couldn't get it to spin. I don't know what I was doing wrong, lack of talent, I guess. But look, McGee can say whatever he wants about me curbing it at the in and out. But he knows the truth. If he wants to talk about curbing that Aston Martin, tell him to go find a mirror.

I'm going to leave it there because I don't want to out him too bad. But let's just say he got knocked the damn front off that thing. And just to be clear, there's no truth that rumor you guys have changed the name of the show to Matt and McGee. Mark and McGee. Oh, Mark. He said Matt. Yeah, we did it. We did an interview on a KT L,

at like 730 in the morning out there on the west side. And this sweet reporter, she was wonderful. She goes, and now we're joined by Mark and McGee. And McGee and I just played it up. And McGee was like, oh, yeah, Mark and I talk about it all the time. That played right to Mariah McGee's personality to throw them that bone. Oh, yeah. Yep.

Can we have you back on the show like every week and share a different story that you have? Because I feel inspired now. this is awesome. Well, honestly, I appreciate that. Thank you. Honestly, like back to that book just a second. I'm not sitting here trying to sell them, but the entire reason for writing it was

I've been so fortunate in my life and blessed by people who've given me opportunity in myriad different ways. I also, I mean, it's as vulnerable as I've ever been. I admit a lot of warts. I admit insecurities that I have. and continue to battle. I really died deep into losing my mama and daddy too early

and what that really did to me and how much it messed with my head and how I had to really find myself. And I will tell you guys this. Selfishly, of course, when you're an author, you want like the New York Times bestseller type. But that can't define your work. I was blessed to get that type.

And thank you to everybody who's supported that book. It means the world to me. But what really matters is the letters that show up, I don't know how people get my address, that's a little different. But anyway, the letters that show up in Laney in my mailbox or that show up at ESPN that say, thank you so much for writing those words, you saved my life.

Or thank you so much for saying what you said, because it impacted me deeply. It changed my perspective. It saved me in a lot of ways. And I know about that vulnerability. I'll never forget. I mean, a lot of y'all know, like Eric Church is one of my dearest friends.

And he's always told me the night before an album came out, how insecure he felt, how anxious he was. And I'm like, what the hell for? You know the works great. And it's this, it's vulnerability. Anything worth it's salt is vulnerable. And if you're willing to put that energy, out into the world, that you have to be okay with whatever energy comes back to you,

no matter what it is, because it's real. And that's a terrifying prospect. But when it works, man, it's special. And we've been able to give two college scholarships with that book. That's awesome, man. That's good stuff, man. That's awesome. We love you, brother.

Good to see you. Let's catch up and grab a beer on a boat ride here coming soon. Surely this rain will go away from Charlotte at some point. Be careful with that. Colin. Good Lord of my. I mean, I need a Zyrtec deal. Anyway, y'all are one, thank you for listening to all my drivel. I appreciate it. I miss you guys. I love the sport so much. And what you guys do, passion is undefeated. And like we control three things every day, kindness, effort, and passion. That's us. That's us. We decide. And y'all's passion for the sport matters because it resonates.

And I appreciate that. I love it. Be good. Everybody stay safe. I appreciate you. And thank you for your friendship. Appreciate y'all. Time for Reaction Theater. And it looks like we have some Joey fans calling in. First caller.

Joey Lagano wins because T.J. can't see through the dirt to spot him. That's correlation, not causation. I never heard that word. I never heard the second one. I heard correlation. Yeah. Next one. The wrecks on Sunday were like Freddy's belly.

huge, but it was hard to do with Hulgano winning. T.J. You suck. Oh, that was great. Another Joey call from Bob. People don't like T.J. Dang. Joey Ligano finally won. Go, Joey.

TJ, you're still b***. I don't understand why they're all about T.J. Like, come on, Brett sucks too sometimes. Oh, God. Yeah, but people like us. Next one. I've never hated anybody in racing more than I hate Joey Lugano. But that makes sense because T.J., you're his spotter.

Anybody that listens to you has to be blonde. I mean, just look at Joey's wife. She looks like she could be his twin sister. Doesn't make any sense at all. I think it is his twin sister. Hey, T.J., were you hated this much when you were Dale Spother? No. No.

We could wreck the field. I'd say do no wrong over there. That's why I don't understand why they keep putting Joy in the booth. The fans don't like Joy Lagano. If Fox is putting him in a dirt track booth when he's not even a dirt track racer, I'm like, give me a dirt track guy. People just don't like y'all, TJ. What have you done to people?

I don't know. It's just win too much or something. This next one should be good. Yeah, next one. I just watched a giant wreck happen right in front of Martin Truex, Jr., and he did a great job of avoiding it, but the real MVP is Quinn Hoff for not running into the back of him.

Yee-ha, future champion. I was really, really disappointed that we didn't get to run the cup heat races with old Quinn Huff on the pole. I told you that. I'm like, we just got, we just got screwed. We were going to see Quinn Huff start on the pole

of a race and it was going to be good. Next year. Call number six. Oh. No, that's Quinn Huff. Bless his heart. He actually wasn't a factor good or bad. Really?

Boy, I tell you, that Denny Hamlin, he's about a free lunch. I know a couple of y'all are up his ass, but I mean, well, with 22, you know, I should have been more aggressive, Beaumare when he was, you know. Shut your ass. If you're going to put him in the fence, put him in the fence. Quit about it. Jared, you just offended most of this table right now.

Shut the hell. Nobody likes you, Jared. That was me. Blocked that number. I called in. That was me disguised my voice. Mason. Brett, I ain't got a problem with you.

You're cool. Freddie, get to fucking Hamlin already. We all know you want to. Just get it over with. TJ, I love you. Can you sign my Joey diecast, please? TJ, somebody likes you. Yeah, Mason.

We found one. Was that you're like... I'm 13 years old, but I like it. Was he... Was that an adjective or... I think it was. A verb. It was a verb.

I was worried that it might have been a verb. It's an interesting point of view, Mason. Stephen has some comments for Freddie. Oh, wow. Freddie, how are you going to let your driver hit a truck that stopped on top of the track, a half a laugh away from him? What a idiot. That might be my new favorite one. That was a good one.

Don't forget to leave an audio message 24-7. you can go to anchor.fm. Backslash doorbook for clear and click the message icon. Garrett, aka Stephen. Cannot. That was Garrett at the end. That was Garrett. That's Stephen.

Oh, cannot wait to hear the best ones next week on the show. Offerpad, question of the week. Offerpad question of the week. With the Easter holiday approaching, do you usually host family at your home for different holidays? And where does everyone usually hang out when they're over? DJ. I would have to say the living room. Living room is a decent-sized living room.

Like I talked before, it's turned into one of my favorite rooms in the couch because my wife bought a new couch, and it's awesome, so living room. Is it as big as Freddy's couch? Probably not as big as Freddy's, but since Freddie always cooks for his family and he's always in the kitchen,

his favorite's probably the kitchen where he hangs out. It's pretty much the same room in my house. My kitchen and my living room are all kind of wide open. But just from now on, my family's not a lot over because the last event they came to was Christmas, and I got COVID. So, nope, I'll come to you if I want to hang out with you guys anymore. But, yeah, we hang out kitchen and living room the whole time, pretty much. Right.

Yeah, my kitchen and living room are pretty much one big open room, so that's kind of where we kick it. I usually do all the cooking. And, yeah, man, I usually have all the family over to my house. It's got a nice little backyard. What about, you've got a casting couch now, so they're not going out in the garage. I don't know. Well, there's a fireball in my garage.

So, what do you call that room again? What was it called? RPG room. Yeah, the RPG room. Yeah, RPG room, which is, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, the fireball usually gets attacked. Pretty bad. And we sneak it.

Like, nobody knows we're doing it. Well, we think nobody knows, but we're pretty sure. I'm pretty sure they realized. Yeah. The last time we went over there, I think it was the last time I was there, we might have been out somewhere, and we went back to Brett's from. minute and I cornered Bodie to talk to him about why this is the RPG room and he didn't really

he didn't have an answer for me I don't think not one that I believed anyway so that so my sister takes a shot of fireball every day she does one mini bottle of fireball right around 6 630 every day right it's her anti-covid thing she thinks this helping her keep COVID away we kind of started it during the quarantine so might as well keep it up so the other day for the for the cup race I said hey let's let's do a shot before race starts. So I bring her a fireball. We do the fireball. She's the next thing, you know, I'm going to cook dinner. So she starts digging through my refrigerator. And she said, I'm going to make this chicken dish. I said, okay, awesome. So now she boils the chicken and doing all this. And so we get like halfway through the cup race. And I'm like, damn, something stinks. So I walk in the kitchen.

And I'm like, Sheila, this chicken don't smell right. Did you check the date on the chicken? She's like, well, no, you just bought it last week. And I said, well, the chicken I bought, I made chicken salad. She's like, oh, I'm sure it's fine. I'm like, no, it ain't fine. So here we go digging through the trash can, right? We find the wrapper that chicken was in. It's been out of date for two weeks, and I've been telling her for a week, something smelled like in her refrigerator, and she didn't bother clean it out.

So here we are about to eat rancid chicken. She about killed us all, the whole family. Maybe that was her goal. I was going to say, maybe you were supposed to go first. I said, never again will you get a shot of fireball and then get to cook dinner? She's not a cooker anyway. She's a cleaner. I make the mess.

She cleans it up. But yeah, y'all check your chicken. It is time to get into our X-Fi more than fast moments of the week. You need more than just speed to compete in NASCAR. And I want to know how you saw teamwork and strategy on the track this week. Brett, you first. Ryan Newman, man, the guy spins out on lap 48 and somehow manages to keep it off the wall. And come back, Freddie, for a top five finish.

I'm kind of torn on mine because I was really, really impressed with Ricky Stenhouse's last restart. I think he probably restarted about fifth, hooked the bottom really well, and drove up. Finish second. I just wish he could have hooked the bottom a little bit better, a little bit earlier in the race, and not cut our left rear when we were kind of crowding him a little bit. But, TJ, what do you got? My more than fast moment is going to be Lugano and Suarez, swerving up the racetrack, showing you how it's done to miss a spinning Cody wear to both come home with top five.

finishes. Nice. Here on Doorbubber Clear, being more than fast is a way of life, and that's why Ryan Newman Man, is this week's Xfinity X5 more than fast moment. You know what else is more than fast, Xfinity X-Fi. All your devices stay connected with coverage, delivers speed that you need. You also get the reliability and security that keeps your crew connected and protected. Being more than fast on the track means you have what it takes to win. When it comes to XFinity X-Fi, it means you You can do more of what you love with faster internet speeds.

Follow at Xfinity Racing on Twitter to see more Xfinity X5 more than fast moments. And remember to vote for your favorites. Thank you to Xfinity, proud premier partner of NASCAR. Hey, what's up, DBC fans? If you haven't heard about Anchor, it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let us explain. Well, first of all, Freddie, the best part is it's free. There's nothing better than using a free awesome service.

To make the process simple and easy, there's creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Anchor helps people find your show by distributing the podcast for you so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and many more platforms. Also, you can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. I like money. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place. We love using Anchor. It's a great platform that lets us hear from the fans in Reaction Theater with Anchor's Leave a Message feature. So when you create your account with Anchor, you can also utilize their feature and make your own podcast.

TJ will be your first guest. So download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm.com to get started. That's A.N.C.O.R.f.f.m.f.m.com to get started. What an idiot. Oh, boy. I wonder who this is going to be. Brett. I have to go with Derek Krauss. He wrecked seven seconds. after John Hunter and Eamichette got wrecked. What an idiot.

And there were a bunch of idiots to pick from him. Can you nominate yourself, Freddie? I don't know if it's Derek's fault. My fault. Maybe it's Matt Crafton's fault. Maybe he didn't spin that guy out. None of that shit would have happened. You can't blame.

Hey, Matt, Crafton, you're an idiot. No. You can't say that. Why not? If he didn't dump that guy, that guy would not been sitting there, I would have run into him 20 minutes later. It's Matt Crifton's fault.

What an idiot. If your guy slows down earlier, he doesn't hit him. Matt, what an idiot. Can we have Matt on the show? He turned their argument right around. I know, man. TJ.

Freddie, I'm going, Freddie. You don't know what the next opportunity is going to be. Freddy, what an idiot, man. How does somebody wreck and you come in there seven seconds later even at Bristol? My lazy boy flipped over. I couldn't see what even. Maybe if you put that sandwich down when you're spot and you see that car sitting there or something. Oh, boy.

Jesus. Oh, that was a good one. All right, DBC picks. After Bristol, TJ, you won with Austin Dill. Dylan and Freddie still leads. Fortitude line. Brett, what is going on here? I had the best driver in the field, according to America.

Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell took him out. There's another idiot. Do I go first? No. I go first because I finish freaking last. I'm going to have to stay loaded up here and go with a guy that Marty Smith said is maybe one of the best drivers ever. I was looking at, so I'll go through the points because I was like,

I've got to figure out who I'm going to pick. I got to go, surely somebody down south, truly there's somebody out of the top. Make your damn pick already. That I can pick. But man, I got down there and all the, like Ross Chastain, Chase Briscoe, Eric Amarola. They're not there. Like, they're not in the top.

So I'm going with Denny Hamlin. I'm loading up. I'm going to take, I think I won with this guy here last year. I'm going to take Bubba Wallace. You did win with him last year. You finished like seventh. I am going to roll with Brad Keselowski. Damn.

Y'all loaded up too. Maybe I'll win. I need a win. I keep picking good guys and I keep sucking. You need to learn how to say a game. I'm jinxing them. Brad, yeah. There's no doubt that I'm just jinxed Brad.

I can't believe we sat down here and I've been doing this short track t-shirt deal for a couple weeks. And I got old Travis Braden on today. But to my left is a new modified spotter next week in Martinsville. I've never spotted a modified race. And there's only two tracks where I really had a high interest to do it. And it was New Hampshire and it's Martinsville. So to do my first one, if I was going to do my first one, I would have wanted to be one of those two tracks. So Doug Kobe hit me up, send me a message, said, hey, I need a spotter.

You want to do it? And I was like, dude, hell yeah, I'll spot for a six-time champion. He's rocking the Doug Kobe share. It was funny because, well, you know, I didn't think you had any interest in doing that. I don't think we've ever talked about it. So Doug was looking for a spotter a couple weeks ago. And I was like, I, you know, there's a couple guys, but never even crossed my mind that you would want to do it. So that's awesome.

We'll be going head-time. He doesn't know how much I charge yet, though. Did you even know, are you doing practice? This time last year, Doug Kobe was getting hammered from the eye racing stuff, wasn't he? Because he was like, he made some comments about it. But I will say this, the model, like, Martinslow Modify would be up there on the list that I'd want to be a part of as far as a win. You know, winning the 500 and a championship. That, I've won Loudon with Todd Zeggety and it's up there.

Like, that's actually pretty, it's up there on the list. I won, I won 2005 or six with Jimmy Blewett. And then the last time they ran, I don't remember what year it was. Me and Ronnie Silk were working together. And we were leading with like 10 to go, had the race in the bag, and some kind of fuel pickup problem or something around the gas. Heartbreaker. So I'm going back with Ronnie Silk.

So hopefully we can maybe redeem that one this week. That would be awesome. Now, my Herschman's brother being this one. No, Matt won't be in this. Brett, you might be a little bit. That's good because he's been winning so many races. I don't want him in that. That's why I was asking.

Yeah, he's won quite a bit. I'm looking forward to that's been a long time. Yeah. Yeah. You might be a little bit rusty, even on the couch for a while. Oh, I'm not rusty. Knock the rust right off. Once I say green, it's on, girl.

All right, well, hope you all have a great Easter and some time off for y'all going on vacation. Yeah, I'm leaving three hours to go to Miami. I'm going to meet John Levec at Big Al's to get my radios program to spot for Doug Kobe. That's what I'm doing this week. Is he bringing the RE truck? Yeah, he's bringing the big RE truck there? I'm going to go to the, I think we're going to Charles. Oh, good.

Jealous. I think Bubba's going down there. Is he? Yeah, he'll probably have his camera out up with the suns. You're going to Charleston or one of the beaches? Isle of Palm area, I think. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's perfect. And I will be home watching Chloe because Chad is going midget racing with Ricky.

So. What is that race? Do you want to go to the beach with us? Friday's Saturday? Done. I'm going to say, don't do that. Anything to get out of here and to leave my house. So done.

Thank you all for listening. Yeah, have a good Easter. See after Martinsville. We're off next week. No DBC. Don't tweet Jason wins a show dropping. Yeah, don't even worry about calling in and leaving any... You can tweet about how much you miss us, though.

Yes. Don't worry about leaving any good message from me this week. We out, holla. Have your week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.